1 large onion (this one happened to be from the farmer’s market), sliced thinly into rings

2 garlic cloves, pressed

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese plus additional for serving

1/3 cup half-and-half

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil, divided

I began, as I usually do, by putting a pot of water on to boil, for the pasta.

Then I sauteed the prosciutto in my new ginormous Cuisinart Green Gourmet saute pan. How nice not to have things slopping over the edges.

I removed it and threw in the onions, a few minutes later the asparagus, zucchini, and garlic. Let that get all soft, and found time to chiffonade the basil, stirring the veggies occasionally, added a splash of 2 buck Chuck Sauvignon Blanc to deglaze the pan.

I added the peas and a cup of chicken stock. At this point, the water was boiling and I added the pasta. Hey! Pappardelle takes 10-12 minutes to cook. Okay…had a little time to kill…did a little sipping on the wine…Laura and I priced bar stools for our counter-on-the-galley-kitchen, but they were all spendy or not cute. Honoree told me she wanted waffles for dinner instead so I said, knock yourself out, they go in the toaster.

About 9 minutes into the pasta cooking, I asked Laura for some sous-chef aid. Everything suddenly needed to come together really fast. She handed me the half-and-half, took the plastic choker off the package of parmesan, found me the pepper grinder.

I added the creamy stuff, the lemon juice [news flash: that lemon juice really brought it all to an extremely DIVINE level], put the proscuitto back in the mix, then drained the pasta and added that to the sauce, tossed it a bunch to get everything melded together, and at long last, tossed on half the fresh basil and the parmesan cheese. Stirred that in, plated it, ground some pepper on top, tossed on more fresh basil, and sat down for dinner.

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